Little Dorrit loses 1.5 million viewers as audiences fail to find it

Little Dorrit, the BBC's lavish adaptation of Charles Dickens, has lost nearly a quarter of its audience because of confusing placement in the schedules.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor

4:18PM GMT 31 Oct 2008

The series launched on BBC1 last Sunday with an hour-long opener that drew 6.3 million viewers.

Audiences could be forgiven for thinking they were settling down to a weekly drama, perfect fodder for Sunday nights as the autumn weather closes in.

However, viewers who did not stay to watch the end credits missed an announcement informing them that the next instalment of the 14-part series would be a 30-minute episode broadcast on Thursday evening. Ratings for that episode fell by 1.5 million to only 4.8 million.

To confuse things further, viewers who tune in this Sunday will find themselves watching a 90-minute repeat, including a re-run of last Sunday's episode. From next week, the drama will be broadcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Sunday reserved for an omnibus edition.

Viewers voiced their unhappiness at the upheaval on the BBC website. "Very odd starting a series with an hour long episode at the weekend followed by a thirty minute one on Thursday. Very inconvenient for me too," said one. Another write: "I would have thought the sort of viewer attracted to this style of drama would appreciate a regular slot and not have to chase it through the schedules."

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Others claimed that the adaptation had failed to hook them because the plot was overly complex, with too many characters introduced at once. Andrew Davies, the scriptwriter, has claimed: "You can cram an incredible number of people and incidents into a half-hour without viewers feeling they're just being given snippets."

Little Dorrit is one of Dickens' least-known works but BBC bosses hope it will replicate the success of the Bafta-winning Bleak House. The series stars newcomer Claire Foy as the 'Little Dorrit' of the title, alongside veteran Pam Ferris and Tom Courtenay.